Tech/maintenance A general thread on DIY repair

[PigSquealer]

I bet there isn't a secret method to make them thicker (barring peeling them off and putting a new bit on that's too thick, and then...etc etc)?

Limited success but yes. Depends on quality of felt and if the contact cement really soaked in.
Poke / fluff it up with a teasing needle.
Make some fuzz / a fur ball from another. Iron on the needed amount. If it doesn’t want to stick add a smear of heavy fabric starch.

I need a bit more thickness in there to get a good seal on the E pad.

Options.
1) Light impression on forked E pad ?
Gently heat the small forked E pad. Quickly clamp the E touch down as played. Let sit overnight. Setting a heavier impression on the pad will lower the touch.

2) Gently bend the touch arm down.

3) Add material to felt.

4) It’s yours and staying home. Add layers of clear tape ontop of cup as needed. The tape is about .005” thick.

 

[PigSquealer]

I can do this with an instrument which is mostly 'there'. If I was starting with a wreck with new pads and no cork, I would be bending your ear(s) about what order to do this in, or all this interrelated stuff would spiral off into an optimisation that never converges on a solution!

Yes there’s a method to the madness. Someday I’ll take a repair class and learn what that is.

 

[turf3]

...ironing felts to make them thinner. I bet there isn't a secret method to make them thicker (barring peeling them off and putting a new bit on that's too thick, and then...etc etc)? On this Martin RH2 (E) is an arm which gets involved with the fork Eb (which seems to work OK here) - and lands loose (that is - has its own separate pivot) on the top of the E key cup with a bit of felt in-between. Insertion of a handy piece of emery paper (handy in that it grips the felt and stays put) suggests that I need a bit more thickness in there to get a good seal on the E pad. I just replaced the corks which hold down G# and Bb from the RH stack, and all that works well now....

All of this is why I don't like felt for any joint with sensitive adjustment.. I know people use it where there's relative sliding motion, but you can't adjust it precisely. I use cork and lubricate the sliding motion with cork grease.

 

[mark_addy]

Limited success but yes. Depends on quality of felt and if the contact cement really soaked in.
Poke / fluff it up with a teasing needle.
Make some fuzz / a fur ball from another. Iron on the needed amount. If it doesn’t want to stick add a smear of heavy fabric starch.

Options.
1) Light impression on forked E pad ?
Gently heat the small forked E pad. Quickly clamp the E touch down as played. Let sit overnight. Setting a heavier impression on the pad will lower the touch.

2) Gently bend the touch arm down.

3) Add material to felt.

4) It’s yours and staying home. Add layers of clear tape ontop of cup as needed. The tape is about .005” thick.

I hadn't worked out the interaction between the arm and the little forked Eb pad, but now you lay it out - I see it. This'll get worse as there is some cork I haven't done yet around that little pad which (now most of the rest of it doesn't rattle much) I can hear working - which will I guess space that arm even further off. I'll do the cork first I guess, and then see how much of a thick lump of felt I would need, or whether I fancy bending the arm a little. Comparison with a slighly older TT (my long-term alto, and in some ways a similar layout) suggests the felt should be on the arm, but here it's on the key cup - so perhaps that persuades me to peel it off and start again. It's going to depend on whether the missus has any dark green felt - or whether I dip into my substantial fizzy-wine-cork collection as @turf3 suggests. I can see why felt has ups and downs for the sliding implied by two things with pivots at different centres moving together.

 

[mark_addy]

You’re a certified tech Loon 🤣 I love it !
I don’t think I have any blood relatives in the UK, but I think it’s highly possible we share some DNA.
FWIW, I too didn’t know about the bearing size markings. I’ve had a ton of 6205’s in my hands. The last letters after the number is the shielding or seal type and one side or two. That I knew from being asked by spares man.

How to Read & Identify Bearing Numbers: A Complete Guide

Bearing numbers are essential for identifying the type, size, and features of a bearing. This guide explains how to read and decode bearing numbers — including prefixes, basic designations, and suffixes — to help you make the right selection for your application.

www.bearingmaker.com

...and I don't think I thanked you for your kind response to my miller-bodging, so - thanks for the encouragement 🙂 You're an accurate worker who's well equipped in a large, well-organised workspace, with the history and confidence to take on high-end paid work. We are not of the same species, let alone related
😎

 

[PigSquealer]

I hadn't worked out the interaction between the arm and the little forked Eb pad, but now you lay it

Another option is to reverse the forked E spring so it’s closed. Then secure with cork between the wire guard & cup. Knock off the regulation material and play the thing.
This is a pre 1930 ?

 

[mark_addy]

I'm kind-of curious I think to make it all work - all the saxes I play are old and have this; on the Conn baritone it's a 'real' key which sounds properly, on the altos the little 'vent' seems a bit stuffy but it still works, and going from (say) Eb to C# (just saying that makes me think about that recent 'enharmonic' thread and grieve my missing education) feels a bit more doable, maybe - I dunno, I'll keep it for now. This is a Martin stencil, and I don't know how old it is. If it was Martin, it would be late 20s (a Mk3 split-bell Handcraft with fork Eb and - all mod cons - front-F). If they carried on with 'older' designs supplied as stencils it would be a bit younger than that, I guess.

Thanks @Stephen Howard for recommendation to work on corks in-situ. Only downside there is that now I am no longer as sharp as I could be, taking apart - a lot - is a great aid to understanding how it really works!

In case anyone reads this (unlikely, I know) who knows less than I do (even less likely) - a key (ahem) penny-drop moment was realising that all the bits go back on in the order the rod goes through, and there must be clearance in the 3D jigsaw puzzle to allow this to happen. I know that's obvious, but it wasn't before the thought occurred!

 

[PigSquealer]

If it was Martin, it would be late 20s (a Mk3 split-bell Handcraft with fork Eb and - all mod cons - front-F).

See if this octave system is the same below. This would be a series 3 after mid 1928.
The forked E was discontinued in mid-late1929 at end of HC Master. The Typewriter didn’t have this feature.

 

[turf3]

Oh gosh, those octave mechanisms from the 10s 20s and 30s. All the little bell cranks and levers.

Everyone's always harping on Selmer moving the keys around to the right side of the bell and the offset tone holes, that's a bunch of foolishness; what's really important! and useful! is the Selmer teeter-totter octave mechanism. Not the first ones with wee gears and suchlike, but the style on the Mark 6 and beyond, which every other manufacturer adopted just as fast as they could, and a durn good thing they did.

 

[Stephen Howard]

I'm kind-of curious I think to make it all work - all the saxes I play are old and have this; on the Conn baritone it's a 'real' key which sounds properly, on the altos the little 'vent' seems a bit stuffy but it still works, and going from (say) Eb to C# (just saying that makes me think about that recent 'enharmonic' thread and grieve my missing education) feels a bit more doable, maybe - I dunno, I'll keep it for now. This is a Martin stencil, and I don't know how old it is. If it was Martin, it would be late 20s (a Mk3 split-bell Handcraft with fork Eb and - all mod cons - front-F). If they carried on with 'older' designs supplied as stencils it would be a bit younger than that, I guess.

Thanks @Stephen Howard for recommendation to work on corks in-situ. Only downside there is that now I am no longer as sharp as I could be, taking apart - a lot - is a great aid to understanding how it really works!

In case anyone reads this (unlikely, I know) who knows less than I do (even less likely) - a key (ahem) penny-drop moment was realising that all the bits go back on in the order the rod goes through, and there must be clearance in the 3D jigsaw puzzle to allow this to happen. I know that's obvious, but it wasn't before the thought occurred!

The forked Eb mech is fine in principal - even useful for some players - but it speak volumes that manufacturers stopped fitting it a very long time ago.
From a mechanical perspective it's just a leak waiting to happen. I generally disable the mech by reversing the spring on the Eb key unless the client tells me that they want the mech to work...and when I tell them how much it'll cost to make it work properly they almost always say "Oh, just disable it then".

Putting vintage stacks together can be a bit of a puzzle sometimes - and it gets a bit annoying when you have to fit a key further down the stack first and then find it pops off when you try to fit the other keys. A handy tip is to find a long, thin rod and push it through from the threaded pillar. This will hold the keys more or less in place while you push the rod screw in from the other end.
And yeah, you do need clearance...but not at much as you might think. What tends to happen is that as you go to fit a key which butts up against another key, the other key twists off axis slightly...which effectively lengthens the key barrel. This makes it difficult to fit the next key, which leads people to suppose that they need more clearance. So out comes the cutter/file - and when the action's finally assembled they find that there's axial play in the stack.

 

[Stephen Howard]

OK, when Stephen mentioned pliers, that's the kind of thing that came to mind. Are they wide enough to span a whole spring to press _out_? I just gave my 17-yr-old nephew a massive pile of 'doubles' - tools I already have one of (in truth, they were 'trebles' or even worse). So normal sources are depleted - I might need to dig at our museum for a fecked pair of pliers to abuse 🙂

These kind of pliers are really good for customising. Old, plain pliers - often smoothed-jawed. Pick them up on ebay for around a fiver a pop. Well made, and not so hard that they're difficult to machine.

The inset shows a pair of swedging pliers I made which are fitted with a hardened steel insert on the basis that softer steel jaws sometimes get scratched up...which leads to marking on the key barrels unless you're fastidious about polishing the jaws every time you use them. I also made some with bronze inserts. The jury's still out on whether they're effective or not - but they're easier to resurface if they do get damaged.

 

[turf3]

The forked Eb mech is fine in principal - even useful for some players - but it speak volumes that manufacturers stopped fitting it a very long time ago.
From a mechanical perspective it's just a leak waiting to happen. I generally disable the mech by reversing the spring on the Eb key unless the client tells me that they want the mech to work...and when I tell them how much it'll cost to make it work properly they almost always say "Oh, just disable it then".

Putting vintage stacks together can be a bit of a puzzle sometimes - and it gets a bit annoying when you have to fit a key further down the stack first and then find it pops off when you try to fit the other keys. A handy tip is to find a long, thin rod and push it through from the threaded pillar. This will hold the keys more or less in place while you push the rod screw in from the other end.
And yeah, you do need clearance...but not at much as you might think. What tends to happen is that as you go to fit a key which butts up against another key, the other key twists off axis slightly...which effectively lengthens the key barrel. This makes it difficult to fit the next key, which leads people to suppose that they need more clearance. So out comes the cutter/file - and when the action's finally assembled they find that there's axial play in the stack.

As for the fork Eb, the quality of implementation varies amongst manufacturers, just like all the rest of the mechanism. In my experience, which is only on a few instruments, it's been no more troublesome than any other part of the mechanism. Certainly if it's built with super short hinge tubes, overhung loads, sloppy fits, and squishy soft adjustment materials, it won't stay adjusted. But the ones I've had, and used thin firm adjustment material on, have never given me any trouble.

As for disassembling things and not being able to put them back together, my mantra when reassembling complex mechanisms (and a saxophone is NOT a very complex mechanism!) is "OK, you came apart, I know you'll go back together." Anyone who starts carving on the machinery because they don't have enough patience to put it back together correctly shouldn't be allowed to use tools.

 

[mark_addy]

(I think I might have left room for confusion regarding what I meant by 'clearance'. Not axial clearance along the rod - as you say, that's a given, it came apart, and anyway that's a 1D problem. I mean 3D clearance - all those cups, bars, things which hook under bars, feet, spring hangers, and all the bits like bell braces and pillars that stay on the horn - all need to dance in 3D so that everything ends up back where it should be. So far I've been able to do that in the order the rod goes through (hence my comment above) - but I appreciate Stephen's idea to use a thin rod from the 'other end' if req., that's very helpful. Isn't it funny how in an era when all this was drawn on paper first and then jigs made up - disassembly and reassembly are usually do-able. Now in an era of 3D CAD, where all the 3D jigsaw puzzle can be manipulated on-screen to see how the process is going to work out - there is sometimes so much packed under the bonnet (/hood) that getting in there is near to impossible. All that was very much on my mind when replacing clutch parts at the bottom of a 50-yr-old lathe headstock, recently!)

 

[mark_addy]

These kind of pliers are really good for customising. Old, plain pliers - often smoothed-jawed. Pick them up on ebay for around a fiver a pop. Well made, and not so hard that they're difficult to machine.

View attachment 35654

The inset shows a pair of swedging pliers I made which are fitted with a hardened steel insert on the basis that softer steel jaws sometimes get scratched up...which leads to marking on the key barrels unless you're fastidious about polishing the jaws every time you use them. I also made some with bronze inserts. The jury's still out on whether they're effective or not - but they're easier to resurface if they do get damaged.

I do like your pliers inserts! I'm going to have to do some hot work practice - I suck at it, and my gear is way too big for the instrument itself.

 

[turf3]

These kind of pliers are really good for customising. Old, plain pliers - often smoothed-jawed. Pick them up on ebay for around a fiver a pop. Well made, and not so hard that they're difficult to machine.
...

One of my local hardware stores often has a "bargain bin" of cheap tools. I've picked up some pliers there that I've modified for special purposes. Also small cheap screwdrivers.

Obviously the pliers that are soft enough to file the teeth off the jaws and make smooth jawed pliers, or drill holes to make swaging pliers, aren't what you'd use when the very best is required - but for low-force things like saxophone repair, they can be ideal. What's it take to set a needle spring in a post? Five pounds of force? It's just a pain to get everything lined up; so you slot one jaw of those el cheapo pliers and bob's your uncle.

 

[Stephen Howard]

(I think I might have left room for confusion regarding what I meant by 'clearance'. Not axial clearance along the rod - as you say, that's a given, it came apart, and anyway that's a 1D problem. I mean 3D clearance - all those cups, bars, things which hook under bars, feet, spring hangers, and all the bits like bell braces and pillars that stay on the horn - all need to dance in 3D so that everything ends up back where it should be. So far I've been able to do that in the order the rod goes through (hence my comment above) - but I appreciate Stephen's idea to use a thin rod from the 'other end' if req., that's very helpful. Isn't it funny how in an era when all this was drawn on paper first and then jigs made up - disassembly and reassembly are usually do-able. Now in an era of 3D CAD, where all the 3D jigsaw puzzle can be manipulated on-screen to see how the process is going to work out - there is sometimes so much packed under the bonnet (/hood) that getting in there is near to impossible. All that was very much on my mind when replacing clutch parts at the bottom of a 50-yr-old lathe headstock, recently!)

A yeah, I get ya now. And that's where the thin rod trick wins out.
What I see time and again is that someone's assembled the stack, found that one or two keys won't quite slot into place...and have resorted to 'easing' one of the adjacent keys aside. I typically see this on the top stack, where the G and Bis Bb keys sort of 'hug' the stack. But because they feature split barrels you really cannot ease them out of line while you (typically) push the A key into place.

When you've been taking horns apart long enough you eventually build up a 'sixth sense' or what's going to be a pain it the whantnots upon reassembly...but even after all these years I still get caught out sometimes. Ain't no shame in it.

 

[mark_addy]

See if this octave system is the same below. This would be a series 3 after mid 1928.
The forked E was discontinued in mid-late1929 at end of HC Master. The Typewriter didn’t have this feature.
View attachment 35653

That's interesting! Here's mine - similar function, but layout is slightly different and there is no 'little bar' to drop the B a bit (I got this from Stephen's website) and flatten the C#. Something different going on with side-E too. I assumed mine was a Mk3 because of the presence of the front F, but it seems I may be wrong, or maybe stencils are different.

 

[Stephen Howard]

As for the fork Eb, the quality of implementation varies amongst manufacturers, just like all the rest of the mechanism. In my experience, which is only on a few instruments, it's been no more troublesome than any other part of the mechanism. Certainly if it's built with super short hinge tubes, overhung loads, sloppy fits, and squishy soft adjustment materials, it won't stay adjusted. But the ones I've had, and used thin firm adjustment material on, have never given me any trouble.

Super short hinge tubes? In some cases there aren’t any hinge tubes (as such) at all – just holes drilled through key arms. More often than not you get one scrawny hinge tube at the top end of the key (where it’s least useful) and the drilled key arm at the bottom end.

But anyway, you picked up on most of the issues associated with the mechanism – which, once sorted will make the mech mostly work. Getting the rest sorted makes all the difference.
These are, in short; tonehole flatness, compound key flex (re.link to Aux.F) and variable pad compression. I start with the toneholes and work backwards.

The Hawkes ‘doughnut’ system is far more superior in that it has fewer moving parts and is unaffected by wear In the additional mechanism.

 

[turf3]

Super short hinge tubes? In some cases there aren’t any hinge tubes (as such) at all – just holes drilled through key arms. More often than not you get one scrawny hinge tube at the top end of the key (where it’s least useful) and the drilled key arm at the bottom end.

But anyway, you picked up on most of the issues associated with the mechanism – which, once sorted will make the mech mostly work. Getting the rest sorted makes all the difference.
These are, in short; tonehole flatness, compound key flex (re.link to Aux.F) and variable pad compression. I start with the toneholes and work backwards.

The Hawkes ‘doughnut’ system is far more superior in that it has fewer moving parts and is unaffected by wear In the additional mechanism.

And best of all is the implementation on Conn and King baritones, Conn and Holton basses, and various Martins at different times, where the tone hole is part of the lower stack.

I have one soprano here with me (Buescher) - I'll take a look at it. The other two are far away (yes, I own THREE sopranos even though I almost never play soprano (don't ask - )).

 

[mark_addy]

Here's a couple - brass is mystery Martin stencil, silver is Buescher TT. The more I look at them, the more similarities there are - I suppose they are really trying to do the same thing, after all.